Custom Element Field Definitions

After creating a new Custom Element and specifying the Element's properties in New Custom Element dialog, you can define one or more fields of any type to contain user-entered values for this Element. Use the Custom Element Field Definition dialog to specify fields and tabs for the Custom Element form. You can include any of the two dozen plus built-in field types (such as text, checkbox, selection list, calendar, image, etc.) on the form, as well as any custom field types developed and registered by developers at your site.

Note:In order for custom field data to display in search results, content entered to custom fields cannot exceed 2000 characters.

Access this dialog by expanding Elements & Forms from the Site Administration dashboard and clicking Elements. From the Manage Elements dialog, click the edit icon and choose Field Definitions for the selected Custom Element record, as shown below.

The process of adding fields to the Custom Element is the same as adding fields to simple forms or metadata forms.

As shown below, the Custom Element Field Definitions dialog displays the Element's tab(s) and their associated field(s). In this case, the Element has a single tab: Alumni Chapters, which contains six fields.

To add a field, click Add New Field, or click Add Shared Field to reuse an existing field definition. The New Form Field dialog displays for setting field parameters. If your Custom Element contains many fields, you can organize data into tabs. To add a new tab, click the Add New Tab link.

There will always be at least one tab. By default when creating a new Custom Element, the name of the Element becomes the name of the first tab. You can change the tab display name at any time. If only one tab is present, no tabs display to contributors accessing the Custom Element for data entry. Tabs display only if more than one exists.

Next to each field record, use the set of icons to edit the field, order the fields within the current tab, delete the field, and to move the field to a different tab.